If you’ve ever wondered what makes gay Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar so able to craft startlingly beautiful celluloid out of junkie transexuals, child molesting priests, comatose women, and science kidnappers, then watch this interview with Antonio Banderas and Elena Anaya—the stars of his new film The Skin I Live In. Banderas looks better than he has in years and even reveals some of Almodovar’s mad genius behind his passionate cinematic collages.

In the interview, Banderas says, “Sometimes [acting] was tough. There was always this acid taste of knowing that you were in a territory where the creation is born. When you feel very very comfortable, you’re doing nothing pretty much. You’re just repeating a formula like you’re just doing hamburgers and it’s just fast food. And Pedro doesn’t like that. That’s why he eliminates basically all that thing. He just wants something that is coming from nothingness, from the territory [of ideas] that he plants at the beginning in which also actually he jumps.”

We would have watched the entire interview, but seeing as the film doesn’t get widespread release until November, we didn’t want to ruin it with interview spoilers.